


Between You and Me

by KillJoy998



Category: Block B
Genre: Bullying, But I love the pairing, Implied U-Bomb relationship, It's only slight, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillJoy998/pseuds/KillJoy998
Summary: Key moments of the life of Kim Yushin who is always trying to be a good boy, but most importantly, a good brother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> After falling in love with Block B, I just had to write this, and my imagination kind of ran away a little.  
> I still hope you enjoy :)

****

Yushin is freshly nine years old when his father guides him through pathways of white washed walls, and his fingers are trembling with excitement as he aids his father in knocking into metal double doors with the words ‘Maternity Ward’ hanging above them. He knows which room they’re heading to. He has memorised the numbers, just like his father had told him to do. Because he’s a good boy. Yushin has always been a good boy.

 

As they approach two corridors with rows of doors opposite each other, Yushin’s father crouches down to his son’s level with a smile, and Yushin takes that cue to cuddle in further to his father’s side, his small hand on his father’s knee.

 

“What room do we need, Yushie?” his father asks like clockwork.

 

Yushin giggles and points to the right, “3E47!”

 

“Labor and Delivery 2, well done, Yushin, what a good boy,” his father praises, and then he stands up again, taking his son’s hand in his.

 

Yushin follows his father dutifully with almost a spring in his step, but his little ears catch on to a low rumble of screaming from the room opposite the one they need to be in, and his eyes latch onto the door number, ultimately frowning at the agonising sounds pinging from the room. He wants to whimper, he can sense the discomfort, and he wants his hands to clamp over his ears because the sounds are too real, too _much._ He tries to forget about it when his father drags him inside of ‘Labor and Delivery 2’, when he suddenly brightens up, because _mummy_!

 

There she is, looking pale and exhausted, covered in cream blankets that make her look almost deathly under the satin sheets. She doesn’t look well. But there’s a tired smile on her face, which to Yushin, illuminates the entire room, and his stomach that was churning in fear in the corridor finally blooms up into butterflies as his mother beckons him over to her—over to the tiny baby huddled in his mother’s arms.

 

Yushin moves quickly, but his father grabs his arm, and with a soft, ‘go slow’, Yushin nods and is released yet again. He walks, not runs, as he pads across the room to settle on the edge of the bed, where his mother had invited him to sit, and he wiggles his bottom into the mattress before he curls into his mother’s side. She has an arm around him, whilst her other arm and her legs support the sleeping baby. He couldn’t help but stare at the sleeping lump. He looked cute. Yushin thinks all babies look cute.

 

“This is your baby brother, Yushie,” his mother announces softly, quietly.

 

She says it in the tone that soothes Yushin, and by the little smile on his brother’s face, it seems to work on the baby too.

 

Yushin scrunches his nose up, “What’s his name?”

 

Being too transfixed by the crumpled skin bunching up on his baby brother as he breathes, he doesn’t notice when his father rounds them to sit on his mother’s other side, a true family portrait in the making.

 

“His name is Yukwon,” his father tells him, with a proud smile.

 

Yukwon’s eyes finally open, as if being summoned awake by the sound of his name, blinking blearily up at the three figures that will be in his life for a very long time.

 

Yushin couldn’t help but grin and mirror his father’s smile.

 

\---

 

Yushin isn’t grinning right now, because he’s late, he’s very late for school, and he needs to hurry up otherwise his father will be very angry at him for missing his first lesson and showing bad examples of being a bad boy. Yushin isn’t a bad boy! He’s not! He just woke up a little later than usual this morning, and he needs to brush his teeth and go to toilet before he can grab his pack up for lunch and then bike all the way to school. Whilst his father is at work and unable to give him a lift, biking is a lot faster than walking. And if he gets ready now, he’ll only be a tiny bit late, and his father will never know!

 

Only, as he opens up the bathroom door, he whines pathetically at the sight in front of him.

 

His little two year old brother is naked on the potty whilst his mother is crouching next to little Yukwon, and Yushin flails where he is by the door because this isn’t fair!

 

“Ma! I need to use the toilet!” Yushin complains, trying to hold back tears.

 

His mother rolls her eyes, turning her head to see her eldest acting so childishly, “Let your little brother finish, he’s almost done.”

 

“I thought you were potty training him yesterday, Ma!” Yushin is quick to retort.

 

His mother gives him a look, a hardened look, a look that makes Yushin shrink back and step down from the pedestal he has somehow worked himself up on. It’s a look that tells Yushin that he isn’t being a good boy by answering back.

 

“It takes more than a day to train him, Yushin,” his mother reprimands him.

 

Yushin frowns and turns away, already trying to think of excuses he could make to his teachers to let him off being late, thus his father not being notified for his absence in the morning.

 

He stops when he’s by the staircase when his mother calls over, “If you get your bag ready and get changed before your brother is finished like a good boy, I’ll give you a lift to school.”

 

Yushin grins as he runs back towards his bedroom, having to pass the bathroom again, and when he does, he gets to hear the faint sound of his baby brother giggling.

 

\---

 

Having a bedroom next to his brother’s isn’t what Yushin would call a good thing. It wouldn’t be so bad if his brother’s age was closer to his own, but it’s not, his brother is still far too young, and so with his influences just from one door down, it is really hard for Yushin to be the teenager he kind of already is.

 

It’s definitely hard to bring girls home. Not that it’s always an issue, because he doesn’t always have girls to bring home, since he isn’t a pimp, or a player. He’s just not like that. He just wants one girlfriend at a time, but he’s not exactly a Casanova either, so it’s rare for him to even get a girl interested in him in the first place. That is usually the first hurdle—get a girl to want to go out with him. And then the issue arises.

 

The thing is, after a few successful dates, most girls wish to scope out the current boyfriend’s home, to get an idea of what the boy they are dating is worth. And the girls Yushin manages to ask out, after the third date or so, they do tend to want to be taken to his home, but he always has to decline like an asshole.  

 

Because he just can’t bring them home, not to his little brother. He couldn’t let his seven year old brother hear _that._

 

There are other things he just can’t do either, though he supposes he’s not terribly fussed over if he can throw parties or not. Their house is definitely big enough to host awesome parties for his friends, because that is typically what teenagers are supposed to do when the parents are out of town, or at least out of the house for the weekend. But Yushin can’t risk throwing a party with illegal alcohol and pumping music when his innocent little brother is still in the house. Yeah, when his parents leave, he is always asked to babysit.

 

Because Yushin is a good boy, even at sixteen. He is a good boy.

 

However, having his bedroom next to Yukwon’s is not always a bad thing, either. Like tonight, for example.

 

It’s gone past midnight, with their parents fast asleep, and Yushin is still up because he has an art project due in for the next morning and he has barely covered anything at all. He has his pastels out and his colours and his palettes and his paints and his paper and card and all sorts of crafty materials, but he’s all out of ideas. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. It’s meant to be a theme, the whole unit had been a theme, and this is supposed to be his end project. The project he should get an A out of, because every grade he’s ever gotten has been A’s (except for that one time he got a B in maths for making a silly unimportant mistake and he cried his eyes out to his parents all night).

 

Only, he’s disrupted of his work when he faintly hears cries from the next room.  Abruptly, Yushin drops his new stylized paint palette to abandon his unfinished—barely started to be perfectly honest, other than a few accidental splotches of colour that could look artistic if someone really looks into it—project to click open his door. There is only one person who could be crying right now, next to his room, and that person is Yukwon.

 

His poor baby brother who doesn’t deserve to be crying at two am in the morning.

 

Softly breathing against Yukwon’s door, Yushin doesn’t know if he should knock or just open the only thing between him and comforting his brother. He takes a few more breaths before he turns the door handle and slowly opens up his brother’s door.

 

It’s dark. Yukwon is crying in the dark. His lamp isn’t even on, and the shadow that Yushin creates with the open crack of the door and the window from the corridor illuminates the lump underneath Yukwon’s bed covers. Oh, the poor thing. Yushin’s chest churns at the sight, and now that he’s in Yukwon’s room, he can hear the agonising cries of his brother—they are no longer quiet, or muffled, they’re loud and uncaring and _heartwrenching_.

 

Yushin can see movement of the covers from where he’s standing—his brother knows someone’s at the door.

 

“G-Go.... G-Go away,” his frail, broken voice calls out.

 

Yushin does no such thing. He softly pads his way to the other’s bed, his slim finger reaching out to flick on the lamp, creating fresh artificial light. He’s sure that a nice light will assure Yukwon that it’s okay, that no matter the reason behind his brother’s tears, light can still surround you, and it’ll all be okay.

 

He waits a moment before Yushin dips into the bed, his hand coming to grasp the edges of the covers so he can pull them back to reveal Yukwon’s tired and stained face. The sight pulls at Yushin’s heart in the most terrible of ways.

 

Yukwon’s eyes are red, which is to be expected, but there’s black outlining the crust of Yukwon’s right eye, in a horrible bruise, and Yushin swears he’s never seen that before. Yukwon’s lips are quivering, the bottom one split open ever so slightly, a few red stains scattering across his mouth, but Yushin doesn’t know if it’s from an outside factor or if it’s because Yukwon tends to bite his lip off when he worries. The sight is disturbing nevertheless, and Yushin couldn’t help but pull his baby brother into his lap and cradle him close. He’s done a horrible job protecting his brother from the outside world, and now this is his chance to correct that. To hold Yukwon close and promise him that it’s going to get better.

 

“Th-They’re m-mean...” Yukwon whimpers, his small hands clutching desperately at Yushin’s nightshirt.

 

Yushin hushes him softly, using his left hand to thread his fingers in his brother’s hair in an attempt to soothe him. He presses his lips to the top of Yukwon’s head like he sees his mother do when Yukwon is distressed, and after hearing a few calming sighs from his little brother, he can see that it does actually work.

 

He’s rocking his brother now, gently, to try and coax him back to sleep. He wants his brother to be okay, he doesn’t want his baby brother to be in pain.

 

“It’s going to be okay,” Yushin whispers, meaning it, “It’s all going to be okay, you hear me? Now, shh, go to sleep, I’ll stay here. I’ll stay here all night. I’ll look over you.”

 

It doesn’t take long for Yukwon to crawl up and fall back to sleep again, but even so, Yushin sticks to his promise and doesn’t leave.

 

The B he gets for his artistic splodges the next morning is totally worth it.

 

\---

 

“You’re leaving?!” Yukwon screeches too close to the time that the taxi is meant to arrive.

 

Yushin doesn’t want this conversation. This argument. Their parents are more than happy that he’s leaving this home to move on and go to university and get a degree and start a life out there properly for himself, but his little brother isn’t as accepting.

 

Maybe it’s because Yukwon is still too young.

 

“I... I have to go, little bro,” Yushin sighs, and he holds his hand out, to maybe tuck Yukwon’s hair back.

 

It doesn’t really shock him when Yukwon bursts into tears and runs away.

 

Yushin tries to ignore the door from upstairs slamming behind Yukwon, mainly because his ears also pick up the horn toot coming from their front garden.

 

The taxi is here.

 

His mother is there, with their father, and his parents look so happy, they look so _proud_.

 

“Continue being a good boy, Yushi, you’ve done us proud.”

 

In the back of his mind, that’s what Yushin hears his father say. His mother doesn’t say anything, not at first, because she’s clutching on to her eldest and crying because even though she wants him to leave and grow and become his own person, it’s still hard to say goodbye to your son.

 

When Yushin opens the door to the taxi, he looks up at his house one more time, his eyes resting and clouding up in salty tears when Yukwon’s face stares out of his window and down on to him. Yukwon is still crying when he closes his window and draws his curtain. Yushin holds back his own tears as he clambers into the taxi and puts on his seatbelt.

 

He tells the driver where to go as he stares out of the window absently.

 

\---

 

The first year or so he spends in higher education, Yushin slowly loses contact with his family. He used to call his mother every day, now she’s lucky if he picks up the phone to answer her monthly ‘wishing you well’ texts. He barely even talks about his father, never mind to his father, and somehow he kind of forgot he left a young impressionable nine year old fending for himself. Due to this change, he gets less immersed in his work, and gets more involved with his new friends, in the university life that leaves him a fresh adult in the nights and sometimes he even ends up waking up in other people’s beds from being so pissed the night before.

 

He knows deep down that he can’t keep living like this. That he needs to go back to being a grade A student, that he needs to stop drinking and he needs to keep resisting the urge to smoke like all his friends do, because they’re ‘cool’. He just doesn’t have much motivation for him to keep saying ‘no’, leaving his room murky and smoky some nights when the stress gets to him far too much and he’s left there with a few guys passing joints in his dorm.

 

It’s only when he gets a call from his mother at two am in the morning that he gets a fresh slap to his face.

 

The first time he sees his mother ringing him that early morning, he ignores it and lets it go straight to voicemail, because only dorks talk to their mothers.

 

“ _Yushie? Yushin?  Yushin, you have to pick up. Are you awake? Yushin?_ ”

 

It takes three seconds before she calls again.

 

He ignores it. It goes to voicemail.

 

“ _Yushie? I’m only calling this much because I’m desperate, you must understand this_.”

 

It’s harder, but he ignores that too.

 

“ _Yukwon is getting bullied.”_

Yushin takes in a sharp breath of air, his body freezing, his fingers flinching in their own grasp. He’s seen what other kids do to Yukwon. He’s _seen_ it. He needs to pick up.

 

She rings again.

 

He doesn’t answer.

 

“ _He wants you to visit him in hospital.”_

 

It takes one minute and forty-two seconds for Yushin to shove all necessities into a spare duffel bag and pick up his phone to call his mother back.

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

\---

 

The next time Yushin gets an important call from his mother, it’s still about Yukwon, but it’s not about his younger brother getting bullied (that might have something to do with the fact that many years ago Yushin stormed into his school, beat up a few kids and took poor innocent Yukwon to the principle—since then, everyone’s been too scared to say anything even remotely harsh to his baby brother).

 

By this point, Yushin has finished university, has got his degree, and is putting it into practise. He’s had many fleeting jobs, but now he has his big break, he’s comfortable where he is, rising up the ranks, and he’s _successful._ His parents are proud of him again. He may have been on the wrong path for a while, but he’s back, Yushie is back, and he’s still a good boy.

 

And he’s still very much in contact with his family, thus this time when his mother called, he picks up almost straight away. He just has to cross the carpet in his living room—in the apartment that he hopes to move away from into a bigger house when he’s ready— to get to his phone.

 

“Yes, Ma?” he calls into the phone as soon as he swipes to accept it.

 

He hears a sigh coming from his mother’s end, so he chooses to sit down on his couch and ride this problem out. His mother never sighs unless something is wrong. And not something fleeting, it’s usually from the silly ideas he used to get up to as a child, so it warns him that this phone call is basically a bitch fest of what Yukwon fucked up.

 

And now that his younger brother is a teenager, Yukwon probably fucks up a lot.

 

It’s an odd starting point when he hears his mother say, “Your brother wishes to be a singer.”

 

“Oh?” Yushin’s voice curves up into a question, his eyebrows furrowing in thought.

 

Yukwon wants to be a singer? Now that Yushin thinks about it, it is a very adorable image.

 

“A _singer_ , Yushin, a _singer_ ,” she stresses, a couple of hints of hysteria reaching her tone.

 

Yushin knows where this is going, so he makes a promise to himself to put his foot down and defend his younger brother.

 

“I heard you the first time,” he murmurs softly, “And I don’t think this is a very big deal.”

 

“You don’t think this is a big deal?”

 

“No, Ma. I don’t. He’s a kid, kids want to be crazy things all the time.”

 

“I.... I suppose.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll grow out of it.”

 

“And what if he doesn’t? He needs to focus on what can get him a better education, a stable job, none of this silly nonsense that won’t be able to support him. He’s asked his music teacher if he can join the school choir to improve his voice, and he’s been accepted, Yushin. His grades are slipping, he’s barely getting B’s on good days, _and_ he’s told us that he wants to start asking around to do auditions for bands!”

 

Yushin couldn’t help but smile against the receiver. It seems like his brother is really going for it. He’s actually feeling pretty proud; he’s got to call Yukwon up later and ask him about this plan of his.

 

“Calm down, Ma. It’ll be okay.”

 

He chooses that moment to cut her off the line just so he can call his brother.

 

\---

 

The next time Yushin gets a call from a family member, it’s from Yukwon, and it’s not long after he himself called Yukwon up about his new ideal singing career.

 

So Yushin does expect this call, he just doesn’t expect it at two in the morning.

 

Nor, when he does groggily answer it in the darkness of his quiet bedroom, he also doesn’t expect there to be _tears_ on the other line. He immediately sits up, almost hitting his elbows on the backboard of his bed because Yukwon is _crying._

“Yu? Yukwon, what’s wrong?”

 

He asks, and it’s too rushed, too hasty, too much to overwhelm his younger brother, but Yukwon just sniffs from the other side of the phone call and cries some more.

 

“I-I.... I-I’m too fat...”

 

Yushin’s eyes widen and he downright scowls into the night, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

 

He hears his brother sniff and then Yukwon tries again, “I.... I’m too fat, to... To be in the band. I got rejected because I’m too fat.”

 

Oh. Oh, shit.

 

“They rejected you because you’re not the same shape as them?”

 

Oh, the new low. He should have expected this. Show business really is just a cruel form of art. If you don’t look the part, no matter how fantastic you are, you usually never get what you want.

 

But Yushin is not letting his brother suffer through this. He is not letting his brother get bullied once more just because he isn’t as thin as some of the other boys and girls. It isn’t _fair_.

 

“Y-Yeah...” Yukwon mutters.

 

It’s almost a whimper.

 

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, it’s okay,” Yushin tries, he _tries_ , he just... He has no idea how to make his brother feel better.

 

He’s heard his brother sing, he’s seen him on mini stages, dancing his young heart out and doing silly little performances for their family, and he’s so good. So fucking good. Any band would be lucky to have him.

 

“It’s not okay! It’s not _fair_!” Yukwon cries, fucking cries, and Yushin has to hold in his own tears.

 

He has to be strong. He has to be strong for his brother, for poor innocent Yukwon.

 

He would have suggested that Yukwon should look for more bands, do more auditions, because the band his brother likes the most is not the best option for him if they’re a bunch of assholes, but he knows nothing he says will make any difference. And if by the way Yukwon sounds, by how _exhausted_ his brother is, Yushin can kind of tell that this isn’t the first time he’s been rejected at an audition due to his body weight.

 

“I... I’m gonna lose weight,” Yukwon announces softly, so softly that Yushin almost doesn’t catch it.

 

Yushin holds his breath for five seconds before he nods.

 

“Yeah... Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ll help you, alright? I’ll come down and we can work out.”

 

\---

 

A few months later when he gets a call and excited shrill shrieks invade his eardrums because Yukwon is now an official Block B member, Yushin nearly cries.

 

He knows he did the right thing.

 

His brother is a singer. Ha, take that, Ma.

 

\---

 

When Yushin receives a few concert details, he decides to go to one of them, so he can give his support and to see what his brother is like on stage with the rest of his crew.

 

They’re Block B, clumsily famous, and whilst Yushin sits in the crowd with a clear sight of the stage and all seven members on it, he feels tears once again form in his eyes. They’re good, their voices are clear, not rushed, upbeat, in tune, and the dance moves are on point, whenever they proceed to dance. He’s so _proud_.

 

He can see Yukwon, up there, part of the seven members, and he looks so at ease, so happy, so at home, like it is natural to belt his singing voice out there to an audience of so many people with almost friends and it puts Yushin’s heart at rest.

 

Yukwon knows what he’s doing. He’s being a singer, that’s his career, and he’s nailing it.

 

When Yushin goes back stage to greet his brother and congratulate the shit out of him, he stops just behind the door, so he can still see, just a little, because he doesn’t want to interrupt the cheers that the boys are doing on their own. He watches with a smile as all of the members of Block B forcefully pull each other into gripping hugs that just shows pure celebration and happiness. His brother is grinning, is laughing, is hugging the others back in return, and it’s a beautiful sight. He’s never seen his brother look so at peace with himself before.

 

He’s about to step inside, because the boys seem to be calming down, seem to be wearing off the initial adrenaline of doing a show, but something else stops him this time. It’s his brother, little Yukwon—who isn’t very little anymore— pulling another member to the side, one with light blondish hair, with a tint, almost like a strawberry blonde.

 

He feels creepy watching them both pull at each other teasingly, but honestly he’s just waiting for the right chance to dive in and tackle his brother, but he freezes, his fingers curling on the doorframe, because the two boys are leaning in to each other, as if ready to kiss, and something clicks in Yushin’s mind, something he’s never seen before about his brother out of all the years he’s known him, even when their lips actually don’t touch each other. They just laugh it off like a couple of young boys and push each other away. Yushin contemplates going in now, since the boys have obviously stopped playing, but then the strawberry blonde has his hands curling around Yukwon’s arm, and Yukwon is smiling, smiling a smile that Yushin hasn’t seen before, open and safe, and then strawberry blonde— B-Bomb? Maybe? Is that how he was introduced on stage?— tugs at him, pulling him somewhere else, and Yushin watches with a faint smile.

 

He leaves them to it, and he decides to surprise his baby brother in his hotel the next morning.

 

The reaction is still worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm unsure of if I want to add more to this, because a part of me wants to do another chapter. I have a few ideas of it. Perhaps maybe something in Yukwon's perspective, would anybody wish to read that?  
> Still, love you guys, have a nice day :)


End file.
